Back-fill Progress

Shawn has been hard at work with the skid loader. He has all of the front of the garage and house backfilled. This morning he was backfilling the side and back of the garage. Today he will focus on getting all of the house backfilled. He filled in the garage with some more dirt so he can drive in there, but he will wait until tomorrow morning while the ground is frozen to get in there, fill in with rock, and put in more dirt. We have the skid loader until tomorrow afternoon, and he probably won't have all of the grade roughed in, but at least the footings will be covered with 4 to 5 feet of dirt to protect from frost through the winter.

The flatwork contractor said he will be here on Friday to frame up the stoop, and I'm assuming he will try to pour on Monday. We'll see how it goes. The framer is scheduled to start Monday, but we will probably have him come a day later after the stoop is poured. So progress is being made.

If the framer starts next week, we should have a roof up by Christmas as long as we don't have too many blizzards between now and then.

Here are some videos for you to enjoy. I got distracted while filming when I noticed the dump truck backing into our driveway. Our loads of rock were arriving.


And to pass the time, here's a load of rock for you:



Here's what the front of the house looked like this morning when I came to work:


Here's Shawn working on the back of the garage.

A visit from Murphy

According to Wikipedia:

Murphy's law is an adage in Western culture that broadly states, "if anything can go wrong, it will."

I like this one: "If there's more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way"

Here are others: "Anything that can go wrong, will," the similar "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong," or, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way." In a less dramatic fashion, the law can be expressed as "Anything that has a probability of happening greater than 0 can and will happen. No exceptions."

So basically, that summarizes the weekend. Well, not really, we did get a lot done, but things weren't the way we had planned.

It all started well and happy on Friday. Shawn and Brian worked on installing the french drain system for the eave spouts, while Pam and Derald raked leaves and cleaned the area so that rock could be dumped in. Brian left, and Shawn, Derald and Pam began to fill in around the garage with pea gravel.

Saturday morning Shawn, Derald and I worked on building up a ramp so that we could get the skid loader in the garage to fill in more pea gravel. The weatherman predicted maybe a dusting of snow during the day, and this is where Murphy's law began it's day long campaign. Instead of a dusting, we got 3" of snow. I think this was God saying: I don't think you should be working on this today, but we didn't listen, so we worked through the snow. The top 6" of dirt were frozen, but underneath it, the dirt pile was a gooey mess of clay. Great for pottery, not so great for backfilling.

While Shawn carried loads of dirt with the skid loader, Derald and I shoveled dirt around to give the ramp shape. So after about four hours of work, the ramp was ready, or so we thought. The clay was just too wet so trying to get the skid loader up the ramp was like trying to climb a mountain made of soft butter. The dirt would just slide around and the tractor would just sink in. Again, I can picture the All Mighty shaking his head at us.

We were at least wise enough (credit Derald here) to decide not to go over the ramp into the garage, because we feared we might not get the skid loader out. Here's a picture of the ramp that we took yesterday (we couldn't find the camera on Saturday. Cari, Brian's wife, took pictures with her camera, so I'll post those when I get them from her).


The other thing that we needed to do was to compact the soil as we backfill so that it won't settle as much. Well, that went about as good as trying to give a cat a bath. The clay was so sticky that trying to push the compactor was like trying to push an 800 lb gorilla that was glued to the ground. Another victory for Murphy. Actually, I think God was rolling his eyes at us at this point and mumbling about children who don't listen.

We very quickly gave up the idea of compacting, and instead used a hand tamper to pound in a few places so that we can at least feel good and say we compacted.

To get the footings covered with pea gravel inside the garage, Shawn went around the outside, got close enough to the wall and dumped the gravel inside next to the wall, then we had to hand shovel it into place. Brian arrived and continued to work on the french drain, while the rest of us built some muscles with the shovels.

In the afternoon, we filled in two feet of pea gravel around the front of the house, under the window wells, and almost all the way to the back. We couldn't finish because we still needed to hook up the footing drains to a pipe so it would drain away from the house.
We laid the filter fabric on the rock we had placed and called it good for the day and made plans of all the work we would do on Sunday.

Shawn took the skid loader to load up the 800 lb gorrilla (the compactor) so he could put it on the truck to take back on Monday. The rear right tire of the skid loader looked low all day, and we should have pumped it with air, but didn't. Here's where God said: that's it, you guys aren't paying attention! And with a nice hiss the tire went flat. And there went the plans for any more work on backfilling on Sunday.

Despite all of the progress, it was hard not to feel sort of disapointed. Pam finally said that it was God's way of saying it's time to quit now, or else. We all quickly agreed (We give credit to God for the turn of events, and Murphy can't have the satisfaction of defeat!).

Sunday morning without the pressure of having to be out there doing something (well, stuff still needed to get done, but without a skid loader we were at an impasse). So instead we enjoyed a leisure breakfast and visited with the grandparents. Shawn and Derald did go out to the basement to seal the floor drain so that water won't get in there and burst the pipes when it freezes, and we will be adding antifreeze as a precaution just in case. Pam and Derald left around 11 am, and Shawn, Evan and I played in the snow (Evan calls it nows). Here's a picture of Shawn giving Evan a sled ride. We also made snowballs, and played inside the basement. Here's what it looked like with a nice blanket of snow on Sunday morning.



During Evan's afternoon nap, Shawn and I worked on getting the caulking and taping of the waterproofing finished (Finally!). We also hooked up the drain pipe for the footings. By 1 pm all of the snow was gone. Here's a picture of me working on the caulking. You can also see the french drain that Shawn and Brian installed. The pieces of pipe going up will eventually hook up to the eavespouts from the roof gutters. The system is intended to keep rain water from pooling against the basement and minimize potential damage.

Today, we decided that since the clay is too hard to work with, we will order 4 more truckloads of pea gravel and backfill with that all the way to the top.

The rental company fixed the tire this morning, so Shawn is taking the rest of today, tomorrow and wednesday off to finish the backfill work.
His boss gave us a tip to put hay or straw on the ramp so that we can drive over it. We'll see where we get a bail of hay for that.

Weather outlook is great for the next ten days. We are delayed now, since the stoop will probably not be poured until Monday, but we'll continue to make progress and take it one day at a time.

But who knows, things are turning out this way for the better. My mum says that God always walks ahead of us. So we will just trust in him that he's the GC for this project and we will do things his way. By the way mum, did you happen to slip and forgot to pray for the snow to stay away? We were wondering about that.

No framing :(

We spoke with the framer yesterday, and he explained that it is much better for him to have the backfill in before setting the deck since the work will go much faster. The arrangement was that he would set the deck, we would backfill while he went onto another job for a week, then he would come back and frame the house. Instead, we decided that we will go ahead and backfill without the deck this weekend. He will go frame this other project (a small garage) and he will be back on Monday December 1st. That way he will only focus on one job at a time and won't have to haul equipment between job sites.

We did find a source on the interned that explained that without the deck on, you can backfill without bracing as long as the walls aren't longer than 24ft spans between corners. Since our design is not square, but has many bumpouts, we don't have any walls longer than 21 ft that will need full depth of backfill. We can backfill as long as we do it in lifts, compact each lift, and take care not to throw frozen chunks of dirt in.

Also, since we couldn't find a trencher that was able to come out before backfilling to dig the trench for the waterline, we will postpone this part until next spring. One company was going to try and make it out today, so if they do, we will have the waterline running from the house to the rural water meter pit hooked up. If not, next spring.

I should have some pictures and progress from this weekend's work on Monday.

Brian is scheduled to arrive around noon and Shawn's parents will be in around 2 pm. When I left for work, Shawn was working on putting a pipe over the water line stub that sticking out of the house so we can locate it later if the trencher doesn't come in today and we have to bury it during backfill. The pvc pipe will also protect the water line from the trencher when they have to dig it back out next spring. We will probably do the waterline at the same time as the septic sewer line that needs to be connected once the upstairs plumbing has been installed.

Weather is cold today, but tomorrow it will be up in the 40º's and we might hit 50º on Sunday. That should help thaw out the ground a bit, which is better for the backfill.

The flatwork contractor is supposed to come next week to pour the stoop, since we should have the front of the house backfilled so he can get a concrete truck close enough to pour. They way things go, I predict he will either pour next friday, or Dec. 1st. We'll see.

Framing to Start today!

Monday night we didn't go out because it was too cold. On Tuesday, the pea gravel was delivered, so it's ready for this weekend. Tuesday night Shawn went out there to dig out the window wells that need to go in front of the Office and Back Bedroom windows on the South West Wall. I joined him after Evan went to bed. It was very hard work. So 3 or 4 tons of dirt were shoveled out and carried by bucket and dumped (Shawn did his little earth quantity calculations at work!)

Yesteday Shawn stayed home to build the frames for the window wells, and I left work after lunch and joined him. Shawn had one window well box installed when I got home. You see that red bucket in the picture? That's what we used to dump dirt out. We had to shovel out some more dirt for the second window well to fit. Then while Shawn worked on framing the second window well box, I continued caulking and taping the windows and waterproofing on that wall.

The skid loader that we rented for the week arrived today, and Evan (and the cats, of course), had to check out what Dad was up to. Bandit even hopped in there to ride with Shawn for a while.

The framer is supposed to be coming out today to start setting the floor, and we had forgotten to take out the forms for the beams from the wall. So Shawn went out there early this morning before leaving for work to pop those out. And guess what? One of the beam pockets didn't get concrete underneath it, like it should. So we called the basement contractor, and he said he will send out someone today to patch it.

We are expecting a call from the framer to get an update and see if he will even be there today or not. We'll see.

Anyway, the ground is starting to freeze and we needed to backfill before then, but since weather has delayed us so much we are cutting it close, perhaps we missed our opportunity.
So, late or not, we will be backfilling this weekend, we have help coming over. Yeap, Pam and Derald are once again coming over to rescue us... er... I mean, help us to get the work done. Also, Shawn's younger brother Brian will be here Friday and Saturday, and by golly, if we're not going to get that basement backfilled! Frozen dirt or not!

Little Progress

Here's a picture of Shawn installing the waterproofing by himself a week or so ago. He deviced a way to hold the heavy plastic up by using a clamp and a tie-down rope hanging from the j-bolt at the top of the wall. This seemed to do the trick since that plastic was too heavy for me to hold while Shawn screwed in the orange clips.

Last week it rained all week, so we didn't work at all until the weekend. We received the extra clips we needed last Monday afternoon, but we had to wait to get them installed. We finished installing all of the waterproofing on Friday. On Saturday, we worked on caulking the the vertical seams in the waterproofing, caulking the top of the waterproofing, then sealing the top with some waterproofing window flashing tape. (That's the silver tape you see at the top of the clear waterproofing). On Sunday while Shawn watched Evan, I caulked more of the waterproofing and taped the seams. We have half of the waterproofing done, and we ran out of tape, so that's what we'll have to work on tonight.

We ordered four more truckloads of pea gravel to start filling in around the house. If the weather holds, the framer believes that he can finish his project early this week and come to our site on Thursday to set the first floor. Then after he is done, he will leave to frame a garage on another project, while we work on backfilling around the house. We also need to get the stoop poured around that time too, so it will be ready when the framer is ready to come back. Then we'll see how long it takes to get the roof on. If the weather doesn't turn too bad with snow storms, the framer can get the house up in three weeks. We're hoping that by Christmas we are ready for the roofers to set the shingles. We pray that is it much sooner than that, but Christmas is a good deadline. Still a busy time ahead of us, and it is not pleasant to work outside now that it is so cold.

Progress - Zilch

We ran out of clips to add the waterproofing for the basement, and the contractor can't find his supply, and he might have to order more so waiting for that. We need to finish the waterproofing so we can backfill. But we decided that we will wait for the framer to set the first floor deck before we backfill. We have done some research, and it is just the best practice to have the top of the basement secured against the pressure of the earth.
The framer is delayed, so we have no idea at this point when he will come to start on our house, so we don't know when the backfill will happen.
It's cold and wet outside, so we have really been working much, though there is plenty we need to be doing.

Right now we will focus on getting the outside ready for backfill so that as soon as the framer has that deck in place, we can backfill right away.

We need to make some boxes to go around the windows to create window wells in the office and back bedroom. We also need to get the drains all installed and ready for dirt. We will also be installing some pipe around the perimeter of the house to drain the eavespouts into the pipe, and drain it to daylight away from the house.

Progress is really slow now, since it's cold, but I guess we have to keep on chugging.

A New President.

So, we got Obama in the White House, and so far I can't notice any change yet. At least we're still going trough our tasks.

Monday and Tuesday night we worked on getting more waterproofing up on the foundation. We have the plastic dimple board installed. We need to cut it to match the slope of the ground around the house, and install the scraps onto the areas where the plastic wasn't tall enough to reach all the way to the top. Then we have to apply caulk to seal all of the joints, and put some flashing tape to seal the top edge, so water doesn't sneak behind the plastic from the top. Then we need to cover the bottom with pea gravel and put landscape filter fabric before we can backfill.

The framer is still working at the other house and said he can't start on ours for another two weeks.

Also, the excavator can't come until next week to backfill, and Shawn is thinking he will rent a skid loader and backfill the areas where he doesn't want a bulldozer to get near the house, since we don't have the first floor deck in place before we backfill. It's slow gowing now that it gets dark earlier with the time change. Shawn also wants to use the skid loader to backfill the inside of the garage.

On one hand we wish we could move faster, but on the other hand, the longer the concrete in the walls has time to set up (it doesn't really achieve full strength until 28 days), the better it will be for it to hold the earth pressure from the backfill. This will also give the slab time to cure at least a week, since it is the slab which locks the bottom of the basement walls from buckling in from the earth pressure.

Once we have the backfill in place, the flatwork contractor can get the stoop poured. So the main project right now is to backfill. We also need to build some boxes for the window wells for the office and back bedroom before we can fill with dirt. We also have to put some pipe to drain water from the window well so it won't flood in through the windows.

I keep forgetting to take some pictures, but I'll try to remember for tomorrow.

Videos

I was trying to upload these videos, but they didn't seem to work. We'll see if they work now.

Another Item off the list in the never ending construction schedule

Friday, we didn't work on the house. Instead we did some much need shopping, after we took Evan trick or treating at the mall. I'll have to post some pictures later. I didn't bring those with me.

Friday night, Derald and Pam arrived and we visited and relaxed that night.
On Saturday, Pam watched the Big Guy, and the rest of us went to work. With Derald's help and 1200 screw clips later, we finished laying out almost 3/4 of a mile of pipe. Here's some pictures as evidence. Derald and I measured and laid all of the clips for each room beforehand, then Shawn would snap in the pipe, while we moved onto the next room.
Also, where the pipe exits and enters the concrete at the manifold stations, we had to secure the pipe to make sure they wouldn't shift, and Derald did all of the work for that. Here you can see Derald attaching the pipe to a 2x4 we screwed on the wall for this particular station. You can also see grey 90º pieces of conduit that we used as pipe supports. These also will help protect the pipe from the concrete. Once it hardens, the concrete can be too sharp for the pipe at that location. We quit early on Saturday to get ready for Brian and Cari's party, but on the way there Shawn got a migraine, so he came back home. Evan and I went to the party for about 20 minutes then headed home.

Sunday, Shawn worked on getting all of the pipes hooked up together to form a single length of pipe. Then on one end we placed a cap, and on the other end we had an air valve and a pressure gauge. We filled the pipe with air to 50 pounds per square inch of pressure to see if we could find some leaks. We also needed to keep the pipe pressurize during the concrete pour. In the event that the pipe somehow gets damaged during the pour, the air will leak and you can mark the spot and try to keep the concrete from that area so it can later be fixed. We had to tighten all of the joints again as they were leaking, then we brought the pipe up to 50 psi again and left it overnight.

Also, on Sunday, Derald and Shawn worked on getting more of the waterproofing installed on the outside of the wall as we need to backfill soon.

The contractor called on Sunday afternoon to tell us that the pour was scheduled for this morning. Pam and Derald left in the evening with eternal gratitude from our part. My wonderful mother-in-law again left us caught up with laundry, squeaky clean floors and no dirty dishes, bless her heart!

This morning Shawn went out to the house and found our pressure gauge was reading 14 psi! Uh oh. That meant there was a leak somewhere. We went around and tested the pipe connections, and two of them had leaks still. Thank God the concrete trucks were running late, as that gave us time to tighten those connections again. We tried to pump the pipe up to 50 psi again, but the little air compressor had enough and blew a gasket. We at least got the pipe to 40 psi.

The crew arrived at 7:00 am to prepare, and what a difference compared to the other concrete crew. You could tell that these guys were very organized and prepared for the job ahead.
They cut a hole in one of the windows so they could get in there later and start using the power screed once the concrete hardens a little.

Here you can see them when they started pouring in the safe room. There were six crewman all working at once. One held the hose from the concrete telebelt, then two came after to do a rough spreading of the concrete, then two others leveled the concrete with a 2x4, then finally Bubba came with the bull float to get it nice and level, and smooth. Here's a video of the pour in the back bedroom. The little red clips seemed to hold the pipe ok, but the guys stepped on the pipe just in case to keep it from floating or moving when the concrete was placed. Here you can see how the concrete gets placed with a pump truck. Also, on the left you can see what looks like a huge fan. This is called the power screed, and once the concrete hardens for about an hour or two, Bubba and one other worker get back in there and begin to smooth the concrete. One of them claims it will almost as smooth as glass, so we'll see. They hang the power screed on the wall beforehand so they don't have to try and drag it inthrough the door all the way into the back of the basement and chance dropping it and ruining the floor. This way, they will climb in through the window and work they way out towards the door.

In this picture you can see the full crew in action. You can also see the temporary pipe that's hanging that we used to connect all of the loops together from the different manifold locations.
And here you can see Bubba and his big bull float doing the first pass for smoothing the surface of the concrete. The young man with the white t-shirt with black sleeves told us that he used to know the tenants that lived at our old house before we bought it. I guess this placed was called Snake Hill and he used to come and party over here quite a bit. I think I might keep the name Snake Hill for the acreage. Sounds sassy.

Well, the slab is now poured. When we left for work, Bubba was waiting for the concrete to set before he could go in and do the final smoothing of the surface. I'll have to get some pictures to share.

Here's a picture I took from outside the house. You can see on there the dimple board waterproofing on the front of the house that the guys installed on Sunday.















The flatwork conctractor needs to have the backfill in before he can pour the stoop, so that the concrete truck can get close enough to the house. The dilema is that we don't have the first floor deck on, and the walls might not take the earth pressure well without that extra reinforcement. I am also concerned that if we backfill without the deck, and the concrete truck gets too close to the house it might crack our wall, or worse cave it in.

So we are going to call the framer and see if he can get out there and get that deck on, even though he'd like to have it backfilled as well. So we'll see.
We also need to have the waterline trenched in from the meter pit location before we can backfill, but one company won't be able to come out for three or four weeks. The other company will see if they they schedule us in. So we'll see.